In this video, vocal coach Brooke Richey argues that the inability to belt isn’t just a technical issue but stems from unresolved emotional trauma and limited internal capacity. She likens the body to a sponge that absorbs life experiences; when CPT‑related memories remain unprocessed, they drain energy and restrict vocal power. Richey introduces her "voice‑led clarity" method, a process of using the voice to uncover and release suppressed memories, thereby increasing personal capacity. She explains how embodiment—physically stepping into the meaning of lyrics—and visualization of pitch targets are essential for precise belting. Practical tips include breathing from the diaphragm, grounding the voice from the lower body, and adopting relaxed postures (beanbag chair analogy). Throughout, she promotes her 6‑week "Amplify Your Voice" program and a free training "Finding Safety Through Self‑Expression" as pathways to both vocal confidence and broader personal empowerment.
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If you're a vocalist and you still can't belt, this video is for you. You might think, like many singers do, that you'll be able to belt the more that you practice, the more you get the reps in, the more you get insight from other voices and coaches. But I want you to consider something else. I want you to consider that there might be a foundational shift that needs to happen, some uprooting of toxic roots that need to come out of your system, be removed from your system, so that you can go from singing like this to this. Get out of my, get out of my way. Get out of my, get out of my way. And these notes are actually just a half step away from each other. C sharp I'm singing in the Green Eyes cover from when I was 17 years old, and in my song Get Out of My Way I'm singing a D5 and I'm belting it. And I'm even getting a roar in there. Why? Because I did the internal work. So I want you to think of your voice and your body. Think of your body first as a sponge. Anything you experience in life, you're going to absorb it. You're absorbing the experience. And this is where capacity comes into play. If you're consuming too much life, if you're consuming too much information, your body goes into hyperdrive of what do I do with all of this stuff? Stimulus and information. This is where CPTSD comes from— when you're hit by something and you don't know how— your body just doesn't know what to do with it. So you do what you have to do to survive, and I talk about this a lot in my other videos. You do what you have to do to survive until finally the pattern goes on for so long you're worn down by operating that way, which is where you might be today, where I was several years ago. Of I need a foundational shift so that I can reach my full potential as a singer, as a vocalist, as a musician. The more internal work that I did with the experiences of my upbringing, of my past, the more internal work I did, the better of a composer I became, the better of a communicator I became, the better of a vocalist I became, as you can hear from these 2 examples that I just shared with you. So how do we get from point A to point B, you might ask, considering all of this? You're a sponge, you absorb things, you got to be able to process through them, and you are also— you just have capacity. That's just what being human is. You have to be able— point one, you have to be able to release. So this is a process known as voice-led clarity, something I use to coach myself To find and uncover a 15-year suppressed traumatic memory. This memory working as a blind spot in the back of my mind, in my subconscious, dictating all the shots in my life because I couldn't see it. And that was the stimulus, the thing, the trigger, the hook that kept saying, you're not safe, right? Meaning if you try and do this thing that you really want to do, you're actually not safe because of this. That's unresolved. So for me, that meant I was going to uncover it. I was determined, and I was able to do that in about 7 years' time. But there was a solid 3 years there that I honed in on voice work. And this is where you speak, you listen, you take action. The voice is designed to help you regulate, communicate, and navigate in life. You should know how to do these things, but so many of us are not taught how to use it. In the right way, so your voice then what you say becomes the fuel for where you're going. If you say you're going to do something, but you take no action, though this is the trick and the caveat here: if you take no action, what you say is are just expressions. That goes back to the oldest lesson in the book: accountability. So no matter how much you say you want to do something, no matter no matter how much you say you love something, love someone, if you take No action toward it, then there's no accountability of that thing going to be your reality. That is how the voice is designed. So going back to capacity, then, if you can't release anything from your past, any— if there's unresolved experiences that you've gone through, if you can't release them, what is that doing to the body? It's lowering the capacity of what you can generate from it. It lowers the capacity of how much energy you have because you have these things attached onto you in your subconscious like I did for 15+ years. See, PTSD was developing and I had no idea. You have these things holding and pulling you down and back. So you have to be able to release. Voice-led clarity built into the Amplify Your Voice program, my 6-week program to help you become a confident singer. And if you don't want to sing, and you just are someone that wants more confidence, this is for you as well. Because everyone has a voice and everyone needs this instrument to navigate in life, to communicate, to regulate, to get from point A to point B. And what you say is the fuel for where you go. I invite you to check out Amplify Your Voice, link for that below. But stick around for the rest of this video because I have a few more points for you on how we can get you to be a confident singer and communicator. So point number 2, your embodiment, your reframe of how you sing, of how you carry yourself. So going back to this, your voice is this instrument that's in your body. Literally, you take it with you everywhere. So if there are things, right, that you have not sorted through, going back to the capacity and absorption and all of that, That you're holding, you're holding on to, you're carrying it with you, right? You're carrying the experiences with you because you haven't released them. That means then what you embody is I'm tolerating those negative experiences to impact my present self here today. I'm allowing those experiences to impact who I am today. So let's look at this from the belting aspect. If I want to be able to belt, right, and I can't embody fully into the line, green eyes, you're the one I wanted to find. Okay, so if I sing that and I'm just like, green eyes, you're the one that I wanted to find. If you're a singer, if you're in a seasoned singer, you might know that I was just singing from right here in the back of my throat, top of my throat, back of my mouth, top of my throat. I wasn't using my diaphragm. I didn't get a full breath in there, right? I was not stepping into the line. I was not stepping into those words. But if I change it, right, and I shift and I embody the words, what I'm saying, I step into action with them. Green eyes, you're the one that I wanted to find. Anyone who— And the line goes on, right? So see how that changed, right? I stepped into what I was saying, okay? So that's why you can't just say things and not take action. You can't— other— it's just an expression, or you're just complaining. Okay, you have to step into the embodiment of what you say you want, and we do this in Amplify Your Voice. More info on that below. I hope you consider joining us. You can find the free training Finding Safety Through Self-Expression with the link below. Okay, point 3. Point 3 is direction, clarity, and your target. I like to share this with my singers who I work with, is when you are singing a line and you're, you're, you're, you're a little bit anxious on hitting that note, but you know you can hit it because it's with— it's well within your range. It's just a matter of the whole mechanics of that line, of maybe there's associations in the words or the sound of the note that's being sung that is pinging something in your subconscious saying that you can't do it, right? This is, this is very normal if you're someone that has CPTSD and you're an artist, you're a singer. Something's hanging, like tripping you up when it doesn't need to. So that's why you visualize. If you know the Blue Angels, they visualize their whole flight plan before they take flight. They go through the whole thing together, just closed eyes in their kind of green room, I guess, to envision all the mechanics and the maneuvers so that they're in the air safely flying together. This is the same thing that you can do as a singer, as a communicator, vocalist, as an artist. You visualize where you're headed. So just in the realm of singing, because I'm a vocalist and we're talking singing mostly here, if you put a dartboard in front of you and you have your whole range in front of you, right? So here's your dartboard, here's the bottom of your range, here's the top of your range, and there's a whole chromatics in between. Where's the note you need to hit, and are you being precise and direct and firm with the effort that's going towards it? That's how you belt. The other thing about this is— I'll share one more tip with you— is belting isn't done from up here, like I just shared in that example of singing that line, green eyes, you're the one I wanted to find. Belting is done from down here. It's all foundational, which is why, going back to capacity, if you can't remove things, release things, let things go from your life, you're lowering your capacity. That's it. Okay, so here's a tip. Head voice, you're sitting at a bar stool. Okay, chest voice, you're sitting in a regular dining chair. Comfy one. And belting, you are completely relaxed. You've surrendered to the notes. You've surrendered to the whole song. You've surrendered to the whole experience of letting— embodying yourself. And you're in like a beanbag chair, a sandbag chair or something, and you're surrendered to it. Okay, so if you want to do this, whether you're a singer or do this with your life, and you want that outcome of I'm boldly confident, I'm authentic in my identity, who I am, then consider joining Amplify Your Voice, the 6-week program to help you become a confident singer and also just help boost your confidence if you're an individual that's like, I'm not really a musician, but I love the concept and the benefits that come with exercising music in my life. Music is a whole science. There's a psychology around it and what it does for your brain. It literally kept me alive for my whole entire upbringing. This is why I do what I do. I'm built on music. That's, that's my foundation. It basically kind of works to cancel out the CPTSD that I had and kind of launch me forward into the next phase of my life. So link for that below, and you can attend the free training for Finding safety through self-expression. I hope this video helped you, and I hope to see you enroll in Amplify Your Voice soon. Peace.
